The LCA conference is part of the process through which we seek to enrich the LCA course curriculum with innovations in scholarship and practice. Each year, the teaching group identifies development opportunities in the curriculum: for example, last year’s theme – “The Role of Business Leaders in Government” – resulted in new teaching materials around the topic, which we introduced into this year’s course.

The theme for this year’s conference is “Capitalism and Culture: International Perspectives.” The purpose is to explore the relationship between capitalism and ethical culture in different parts of the world – in particular to examine how local ethical tenets and cultural traditions answer important questions of how business leaders are expected to behave toward members of various groups, how the common good is defined and supported, and how concepts such as fairness, efficiency, and liberty are understood.

After a brief introduction, the conference will feature four one-hour sessions, each led by our guest speakers, prominent business/ public personalities in their home countries who are actively engaging in domestic issues of societal ethics. The speakers are:

Fola Adeola (Nigeria/ Africa): Fola was the founding chief executive of Guaranty Trust Bank, one of Africa’s largest private-sector corporations. Since retiring from the bank, Fola has played an important role in building public institutions and promoting civic engagement in Nigeria. A former vice presidential candidate in Nigeria, Fola has been awarded that country’s highest civilian honor.

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Pakistan/ Islamic World): A graduate of SOAS, London, Aasim is a political economist at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and a widely influential columnist for The Dawn, Pakistan’s newspaper of record. His columns are here: http://x.dawn.com/author/aasimsajjadakhtar/

Luis Moreno Ocampo (Argentina/ Latin America): Luis is a co-founder and the inaugural lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Previously, he was a prominent anti-corruption prosecutor in Argentina and head of Transparency International’s Latin America & Caribbean operations. He was listed among the 100 Top Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine in 2011.

Boming Wang (China): Boming is the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Caijing Magazine, widely regarded as China’s most respected media organization, particularly for its hard-hitting coverage on corruption. Previously, Boming was a member of the core government team that initially established China’s capital markets institutions.

We expect these sessions to be highly interactive. Thereafter, we will organize a concluding one-hour session to synthesize the lessons and questions from the day. This session will be helpful in developing teaching materials for the LCA course.